Courier (19 page)

Eve nodded her head. "And with these files to work from, they can go digging for the transactions even if they can't admit the film exists."

"Exactly." Dina snapped her fingers. "They aren't going to need evidence that will stand up in court. The White House can't let stuff this flammable even be introduced in an open hearing. He'll have to resign first."

She sat back with a smile. Then her broad face turned serious, and she leaned forward. "The first order of business is to keep you two alive and keep these files from getting ‘accidentally' burned or blown up or something. With the disappearance of the other film, there's been too much of that sort of thing already."

Around them, the women at the bar went on talking and laughing, and the taunts and bragging around the pool games sounded like the happy chatter of teenagers. For a second, Rick had the feeling that he was somewhere safe – a place where he was among friends and the rest of the world could just be ignored.

Then, a chill ran down his spine and curled around his scrotum – in his experience, good feelings like this never lasted very long.

CHAPTER 21

 

Dina went off and talked at some length to the bartender, who kept giving Rick suspicious looks. Eventually, she returned to the table and dropped in her chair.

"OK, Sam has a room upstairs that no one uses." She sighed. "He's not thrilled about having a guy around – much less a straight couple – but I told him you guys were trying to avoid a jealous girlfriend, and he gave in."

She smiled at Eve. "That would be your cycle-dyke girlfriend, of course."

She laughed at Eve's slightly shocked surprise. "It was easier to spin that story since you clearly have a thing for bikers."

Eve opened her mouth to say something, paused, and settled back in her chair.

Dina laughed again. "Rick, you better be nice to this kid. I feel responsible."

"I'll be nice, but I'm not sure I can convince the other players in this game." Rick shook his head. "Whoever they are."

Dina's face sobered. "Yeah, you've got a point there." She shook her head and stood up. "Well, whatever's going to happen, the best thing is to get you guys off the streets and out of sight. You should stay here for the rest of the afternoon and just chill. This place is a tighter secret than the CIA's little hideout under Mount Weather."

Eve asked, "Mount Weather?"

"See? Even fewer people know about this place." Dina dropped a set of keys in Eve's hand. "When it gets late, just go through the door behind the restrooms and up one flight of stairs. It's an empty apartment, and Sam said there were a couple of cots up there, but not much else. Apparently, some of the staff bunk up there on nights when they have a bit too much fun after the bar closes." She smiled. "That might be fine for them, but you kids make sure and get some sleep. I'm going to go home and act extremely normal."

Rick said, "You're pretty good at acting normal. Who'd have ever known you were gay?"

"Rick, you are sweet, but you're also the only friend I have who didn't figure out I was a lesbian within the first conversation." Dina shook her head. "You don't let people get close to you. I almost had to stuff you in a sack just to get you to talk to me back in school. You had a wall up all the way around you."

"Hey, that's not true," Rick protested. "I talk to people."

"If you count ‘hello' and ‘see ya later' as talking, yes. Actually getting inside your head requires dynamite." Dina stood up and started getting ready to leave. "Lucky for you, I'm training to be a Senator, and that requires digging my claws into people and never letting them go. Especially when they're worth the effort. Call me at home tomorrow."

Eve held up a hand. "I don't mean to be paranoid, but what about the phones?"

Rick nodded in agreement. "There were some strange noises on the house phone last night. And that guy knew just where to go, and I know I didn't let him follow me home."

He paused for a second, realizing he'd forgotten about his dead roommates for a few moments. "Goddamn it."

Dina gave him an awkward hug and patted his stiff shoulder. "Nothing you could have done, sweetie."

Eve stood up, and the two women wrapped each other in a long hug.

Dina pulled back and sniffed, tears bright in her eyes. "OK, I can't think about that right now. Here's how we do phone calls. Call me from one phone and ask for someone else and then just tell me you were looking for another number. Make it the number for another phone. Add a one to the first number and subtract a one from the last. I'll go to a pay phone and call you."

"Hold it, hold it." Rick said. "You're going to have to run through that again, Agent 99. And where did you learn all this spy stuff, anyway?"

"Hey, I told you Dad was on the red list. Our phones were tapped my entire childhood. I used to sing songs to the FBI agents when I got tired of calling them names. This was the only way I could talk to my girlfriends." Dina leaned over and went through the routine step by step, "So, you call me, ask for Joe Schmoe, then say, ‘Isn't this four-four-three-five-one-oh-four?' I'll go and call five-four-three-five-one-oh-three. Add one to the first number and subtract one from the last."

"Now, if we've got that straight" – she smiled and turned to the door – "good night, kids."

 

The apartment turned out to be a relic of the 1940s with peeling wallpaper, a battered combination stove and sink unit, and a single tin cabinet over the stove layered with decades of brown cooking grease. The bathroom had a claw-footed tub and a showerhead bolted onto an upright pipe that rose from the faucets. There was a yellowed vinyl curtain hanging off a circle of metal attached to the shower pipe. Dust and grime coated everything. All the shades were pulled down in the front room, but the single bare overhead bulb revealed three army surplus wood and canvas cots folded away in a corner.

"Wow, what a cozy little hideaway," Eve deadpanned.

"It's not about where you are," Rick said with mock pretension. "It's about who you're with."

"I'm with a biker who attracts people with guns. What's that say about me?"

"You're clearly the innocent victim of bad companions. Now let me think a second."

Rick turned in a circle. He needed somewhere to put the film and the photo prints. Eventually, he walked into the bathroom, knelt down at the end of the tub, and – carefully avoiding touching the wall so as not to leave streaks in the dust – shoved everything high up under the rim. The prints were bent between the tub and the wall and were sprung tightly enough to keep everything from dropping to the floor.

He stood up and looked at his work. He couldn't see it from the floor and the rim covered it from the top. That would probably work unless someone took the place apart, which he supposed could happen.

He went back to the living room, where Eve was sitting on the floor next to the door with her knees bent and her back against the wall, watching him patiently. Rick turned the overhead light out, went over to the front window, and slowly pulled back a side of the shade.

He watched the street for a long time, just absorbing the people passing by. As the afternoon turned into evening, more began to appear in pairs or groups, and most of the groups were made up of one sex or the other. The men seemed to be separated into two types: those who were wearing outrageous leather outfits, formal evening wear, or extremely tight jeans, and those who were aggressively normal – if that were possible.

He was trying to form a picture of the scene so anything that changed would stand out. He really had no idea if this would reveal another assassin waiting for them tomorrow, but he figured it couldn't hurt.

Then he checked out the other direction for just as long.

Finally, he let the shade fall closed and turned on the light. Eve hadn't moved and was still watching him without expression. The question of who was going to sleep where was on both their minds. Feeling a bit flustered, he began to set up, leaving a careful space between the cots.

She stood up and helped.

When they were finished, Eve sat down on one of the narrow cots, hit it with her fist to verify its rock-like stiffness, and gave Rick a crooked grin. "Well, I guess that eliminates one possible way to spend the night."

"Guess so." He sat down across from her. For a moment, he was silent, still filled with the sense of foreboding he'd first felt downstairs. "Look. I know Dina makes fun of me for being closed up, but I've had too many people who got close end up dead." He sighed. "Jeez, that sounds melodramatic. Everyone who fought over there could say the same damn thing."

"And they'd be right."

"I guess. Anyway, I don't have any right to drag you into this. Hell, I don't even know why I was dragged into it. Nevertheless, I've got skin in this game. Even if they weren't guys I knew – soldiers who were in my unit or whatever – good men died because this bastard stretched out the war when he could have ended it."

He turned over his right arm and looked at the scars that ran down it. "I invested a lot in this war and I'll be damned if I let a bunch of asshole politicians turn it into a campaign gimmick. So, for all those reasons, I've got to keep going. Not to mention a selfish desire to figure out some way to stay alive. But you don't have to."

Her face was still and impassive. After a moment, she said, "No, I don't have to."

Rick could hear the unspoken decision in her voice, and he felt both warmed by her support and chilled at the possibility of terrible loss. They looked at each other without speaking for a couple of minutes.

"OK, let's leave it at that, then." Rick got up, turned out the light, and found his way back to his cot by the yellow glow leaking through the shades.

"Good night."

"Night."

 

Eve was awakened by his thrashing and listened to the noises coming from between his clenched teeth. She sat up and looked at him for a moment.

Then she stood, went around to the other side, and pushed her cot over next to his. Lying down, she reached over, unbuttoned a button of his shirt, and slid her hand inside, skin to skin on his chest.

Slowly, his movements calmed and his breathing deepened.

The wooden edges between the cots were cutting into her back, so she moved over to his, sliding her hand deeper into his shirt so that she could hold him just a bit tighter.

He turned on his side, unconsciously giving her more room. She snuggled up to his back, and they slept spooned together.

CHAPTER 22

 

Rick woke slowly.

That was unusual, and the warmth curled around his back and the soft breath on his neck were extremely unusual. For a time, he just lay there.

"I've got to say, Trooper, sleeping with you sure isn't dull." Her voice came over his shoulder; he hadn't even known she was awake.

"It was bad?" he asked.

"Well, you were quiet, which is good because I'd have hated to give all the people downstairs the wrong idea. But there were some times when it did feel a lot like sleeping with a Mixmaster."

Rick could feel her smile against his shoulder muscles. "Sorry to disturb you."

"I didn't say it was disturbing. Just a bit energetic." She slid her arm back. "I think my arm will wake up sometime around noon."

"Again, I'm sorry."

She hit him on the shoulder with surprising strength. "Goddamn it, stop apologizing. It makes me feel like a Sister of Mercy or something. I don't feel sorry for you. It's just that no one should have to go through shit like that alone."

She sat up with her back to him and started to undo and re-braid her hair. "You know, most men in my experience have been quite happy to wake up with me."

He grinned. "Most men?"

She smacked him backhand without turning. "Now you can apologize." She got up and headed for the bathroom. "Then find me something to eat."

Rick stood up and stretched. He hadn't slept this long in years – at least not without some serious drugs. He checked his watch and saw it was almost 2.00 am. He stepped over to the window and cautiously looked out.

Despite the late hour, the street was, if anything, more active than it had been earlier. A few more people were holding hands and he even spotted a couple kissing in the safe anonymity of the darkness between the streetlights. He couldn't see anyone that seemed out of place. Maybe they – whoever "they" were – didn't have any agents who were comfortable blending into this crowd.

Then he spotted Corey.

"I'm going out," he called as he threw his jacket on and pulled on his boots. "Meet you outside."

Rick hurried downstairs and through the near-empty bar. The bartender looked up from where he was scrubbing the sinks. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Rick waved a hand at him and said, "I've got to talk to someone. I'll be right back."

Corey had just come out of the bar across the street with another man. They were walking close together but not quite touching. Rick supposed Corey's companion was dressed like a motorcycle rider, but not like any rider he'd ever seen. He was in full leather, from the tiny Harley hat on his head to the polished boots on his feet and all the fringe and zippers in between. Rick shook his head. The only bikers he'd seen wearing chaps were DC motorcycle cops during the winter.